When Melissa Bazely returned from a trip in the Dominican Republic eight years ago, her life changed. And so did her father’s.

James Bazely, president of Gregor Homes, Christal Earle of LiveDifferent and former MPP Alvin Curling discuss the OHBA’s Humanitarian Build to the Dominican Republic at a recent meeting in Curling’s Scarborough home.

When Melissa Bazely returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic eight years ago, her life changed. And so did her father’s.

At only 15, Melissa was already well travelled (she had been to France and Italy on exchange programs as a high school student), but it was that one-week trip with Hero Holidays to the D.R. that truly changed her world view.

“When she came back from building homes with Hero Holidays, she cried every day for two weeks,” recalls her father, James, president of Gregor Homes in Barrie and a past president of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association. “The poverty and the living conditions stunned her.”

Melissa, now 23, returned the following year as an intern with LiveDifferent (the non-profit organization that runs the Hero Holiday program) and now lives in the Puerto Plata area.

Working with the local community to create and build homes — something she believed her father knew a lot about — she finally persuaded James to come and see what she was talking about.

From that experience, James decided to convince the OHBA to take its annual conference to Puerto Plata and do what its members do best — build homes.

“I approached (the late OHBA CEO) David Horton and he grabbed me firmly by the arm and told me to make it happen.

“David grabbed me by the eyes,” adds Alvin Curling during a recent discussion with Bazely and Christal Earle of Hero Holidays at Curling’s Scarborough home. “He told me I must be involved and that he wanted me to be the ambassador for the group.

“And of course, I said yes,” says Curling, 72, a former MPP, housing minister, speaker of the legislature and envoy to the Dominican Republic from 2005-2006. “Nobody says no to David.”

And so, the idea became a concept and on Jan. 12, 2010, the OHBA announced that the conference was going to the Dominican Republic and its members would be building four homes in a poor barrio called Aguas Negras (Black Water because it’s built on a former dump and when it rains black water surfaces and floods the homes, bringing garbage and sewage with it). As fate would have it, that was also the day that the earthquake struck Haiti, which is on the west half of the island of La Hispaniola, with the Dominican Republic across a mountain range to the east.

“It was very timely, and kinda weird,” James Bazely notes.

Arrangements were made with Marlin Travel for a charter plane with 189 seats and an all-inclusive trip to the Riu Bachata Resort in Puerto Plata for OHBA members and their families to spend seven days building homes, conducting their yearly meetings and, of course, getting a little sun.

It sold out quickly and there is a waiting list for the trip — which takes off from Toronto on Nov. 22, returning Nov. 29.

In fact, the demand was so strong, that Earle, co-founder of LiveDifferent, and Bazely decided that the size of the workforce meant they could build six houses.

The neighbourhood of Aguas Negras, with over 2,500 residents, is located in the industrial port area of Puerto Plata and has recently changed its name to Nuevo Renacer (New Birth) to represent the regeneration of the community.

Members have been divided into six teams, with each of the homes sponsored for $6,000. They include Team CHBA Simcoe County (Bazely’s association), Team Heathwood Homes/Mikey Network, Team Waterloo Regin HBA/South Western Ontario, Team Marz Homes “Hammer Time,” Team Brantford HBA, and Team On-Tarions Building Dreams. Each team held various fundraising drives to raise the money needed for the sponsorships.

Each OHBA member paid for their own all-inclusive trip.

Lafarge Canada is the build’s corporate partner. “They are a good fit because they understand corporate social commitment and responsibility,” Bazely says. Federated Insurance is the corporate sponsor.

Each home costs $6,000 to build in hard costs, and the support from Lafarge and Federated means supplemental costs, such as cookers, washing machines, cleaning supplies, beds and linens are covered. Any money left over will be donated to an emergency relief fund.

Many of the association’s members are taking their children to experience what poverty looks like first-hand. One of those families is the Hendersons, father Dave, mom Tia and son Quinn, 12, a Grade 7 student at Father Venini Catholic School in Oshawa.

“We were really on the fence about it at first,” says Dave Henderson, “but we thought it would be good for Quinn to see and realize just how fortunate he is in Canada.

“And it was a real opportunity for him to be with people of other cultures,” says Henderson, director of industry relations with the OHBA.

“I think it will be fun, and I hope to make new friends” says Quinn, who loves to swim and claims his best stroke is the freestyle. “I really want to be helpful, to carry blocks and stuff and help build homes

But Quinn is a little nervous — as are many adults — as to what he may see in the barrio. “I think it will be really different, probably a lot of broken-down houses and dirt roads and lots of people.

Quinn is also convinced that the experience will change him. “I think I’ll have a new perspective on the way we live in Canada, our environment and our houses.”

According to Earle, that is usually what happens when people participate in a trip with Hero Holidays, which specializes in taking high school students to third-world countries to build homes as an “entry-level humanitarian experience,” says Earle. More information can be found at www.livedifferent.com.

“Our motto at LiveDifferent is, ‘A changed heart can change the world,’ ” says Earle, “and I truly believe that is the case.

“Situations like these show that Canadians are compassionate and Canadians are kind,” Curling says. “This is a nice feeling.”

I, for one, agree with Curling and decided that I must join in on the building. Talking enthusiastically about the trip, I was soon joined by three colleagues from the Toronto Star, who have taken their holiday time to build six families’ futures together. They are deputy art director Spencer Wynn, advertising sales manager Cindy Lloyd, and advertising account executive Joanna Trager.

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